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<h1 align="center"><span class="pagetitle">About Hyperlinks in HTML...</span><br>
<font size=2>= <span class="sitetitle">Index DOT Html</span> by <a href="../../misc/email.htm">Brian Wilson</a> =</font></h1>
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     <td valign=top align=center><a href="#justify">Justification</a> |
     <a href="#absrel">Absolute Vs. Relative URLs</a> |
     <a href="#urlenc">URL Encoding</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
     <td valign=top align=center><big><a href="#related">Related Sites</a></big></td>
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<a name="justify"></a>
<dl>
<dt><big><b class="mainheading">Justification for Hyperlinks</b></big>
    <dd>Hyperlinks are the heart of HTML. They allow the linking together
        of remote documents with the convenience of a click or other activation
        mechanism. Hyperlinks are used to establish a relationship between two documents:
        a source (usually the current document) and the destination. The
        destination of a hyperlink jump can be either an entire document or a
        specific location within a document. In addition, the hyperlinking element (A)
        can play the role of destination for a URL (using the <a href="a/a-bookmark.htm">NAME</a>
        or ID attribute), the activation point to another URL (using the 
        <a href="a/a-hyperlink.htm">HREF</a> attribute), or both at the same time.
        <br><br>

        The A element has many other attributes as well (such as <a href="target.htm">TARGET</a>)
        which serve to further communicate information about the source and destination documents.
</dl>

<a name="absrel"></a>
<dl>
<dt><big><b class="mainheading">Absolute Vs. Relative URLs</b></big>
    <dd>A hyperlink destination is defined as a Uniform Resource Locator
        (URL) using this general format:<br>
        [<b class="alert">protocol</b>]://[<b class="magicword">network
        location ID</b>]/[<b class="magicword">path on machine</b>]/[<b class="magicword">file
        name</b>]?[<b class="magicword">query string</b>]#[<b class="alert2">internal 
        document location</b>]<br>This is only a general format for specifying a URL - There are many
        variations within this framework (such as a &quot;mailto&quot; URL), and
        portions of the format can be omitted (such as the [<b class="alert2">internal 
        document location</b>].) Please see <a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1738.txt">RFC1738</a> 
        for more details on URLs.
        <br><br>

        The path to a document can <em>ALSO</em> be specified relative to the
        originating document. In such cases, the [<b class="alert">protocol</b>] 
        and [<b class="magicword">network location ID</b>] portions of the above 
        syntax are omitted and [<b class="magicword">path on machine</b>] is given 
        relative to the current file or to a complete URL referenced in the BASE element.
</dl>

<a name="urlenc"></a>
<dl>
<dt><big><b class="mainheading">URL Encoding</b></big>
    <dd>URLs only allow a subset of allowable <a href="text.htm">ISO-8859-1 
        (ISO-Latin)</a> characters to be used. Any other characters must be encoded 
        using a special escape syntax that uses combinations of the allowable subset. 
        A separate page in the Topics section covers <a href="../topics/urlencoding.htm">URL 
        encoding</a> in much greater detail, and even provides a little utility to 
        automatically create URL encodings of characters.
</dl>


<a name="related"></a>
<br>
<dl>
<dt><big><b class="mainheading">Related Sites</b></big>
<dt><b class="subheading">Official References</b>
<dt><a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1866.txt" class="relevant">http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1866.txt</a>
    <dd><span class="relevant">RFC 1866: The HTML 2.0 specification (plain text)</span>
<dt><a href="http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html-spec/" class="relevant">http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html-spec</a>
    <dd><span class="relevant">The web version of the HTML 2.0 (RFC 1866) specification</span>
<dt><a href="http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Wilbur/" class="relevant">http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Wilbur/</a>
    <dd><span class="relevant">The HTML 3.2 (Wilbur) recommendation<br>
        [Includes all HTML 2 character elements and newer formatting elements in common use]</span>
<dt><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/" class="relevant">http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/</a>
    <dd><span class="relevant">The HTML 4.0 Recommendation<br>
        [Includes all 2.0, and 3.2 elements plus many new features]</span>
<dt><a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1738.txt" class="relevant">http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1738.txt</a>
    <dd><span class="relevant">RFC 1738: Uniform Resource Locators (URL)<br>
        [RFC explaining different allowed URL protocols]</span>
<dt><a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1808.txt" class="relevant">http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1808.txt</a>
    <dd><span class="relevant">RFC 1808: Relative Uniform Resource Locators<br>
        [Another RFC explaining different allowed URL protocols]</span>
<dt><a href="http://wp.netscape.com/eng/mozilla/2.0/relnotes/demo/target.html" class="relevant">http://wp.netscape.com/eng/mozilla/2.0/relnotes/demo/target.html</a>
    <dd><span class="relevant">Netscape Frames Discussion Document - Targeting Windows</span>
<dt><a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/author/html/reference/elements.asp" class="relevant">http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/author/html/reference/elements.asp</a>
    <dd><span class="relevant">Internet Explorer Tag reference<br>
        [Details hyperlink usage including common extensions]</span>


<dt><br><b class="subheading">Other Related Links</b>
<dt><a href="http://dir.yahoo.com/Reference/Libraries/Library_and_Information_Science/Metadata/URIs___Universal_Resource_Identifiers/" class="relevant">http://dir.yahoo.com/..../URIs___Universal_Resource_Identifiers/</a>
    <dd><span class="relevant">Yahoo's UR* index</span>
</dl>

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